Thread by @Mr_kunlecole

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE ELECTORAL BILL ,A VERY SHORT THREAD .

The amendment of the Electoral Act came into full swing during the first quarter of 2017 (Which in my opinion was very late),the National Assembly should have started this procedure on June 10th 2015 a day after they were sworn in.

Because in Nigeria a lot of elections hold outside the normal political window, so therefore electoral amendment procedure should have started immediately.

The proposed amendment bill is seeking to amend 39 sections of the principle bill, a couple of the new provisions are a welcome development while majority of the provisions in my view are a repetition of the principle Act while some are honestly not needed in my view.

Some of the amendments which in my view are good include the following :
1) Media Time: Section 100 (4) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended stated that all political parties should be given equal media coverage by the Nigerian media.

It is important to note that a lot of media houses broke this rule in 2015,the EU report on the 2015 general elections said stations like NTA and AIT broke this law heavily.

NTA for example spent 96% of their primetime hours covering PDP events and campaigns, AIT spent 62% of their primetime covering PDP events and campaigns, Channels which happened to be the most unbiased spent 40% of their primetime covering APC events and 33% covering PDP events.

The New Act has now said that if you contravene this law you will pay a fine of 2million Naira.

2) Display of Logo's and Symbols: The new act notices the importance of Logo's and symbols, because we have seen a plethora of cases in which Party symbols were not displayed on election day or a wrong symbol was used.

However, the law in an amendment to Section 82 of the old law suggests Parties must visit INEC to confirm their logo's and symbol's, and if any Party fails to do so it should be said that they have accepted the symbol by INEC.

In view of the advantages i have highlighted, I will also like to point out the fact the bill is full of so many cross referencing, drafting and repetition errors. I will like to highlight them below.

1)Issue of Neutrality and Impartiality :Section 8 of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended,talks about Appointment of Secretary and other Commision staff.The new law adds a subsection 4 and 5 that says all staff must state their political affiliation.

The law says failure to do so attracts a fine of 5million naira or imprisonment of 5 years or both.In my opinion this new proviso is irrelevant because Section 153 of the 1999 Constitution (As amended )already says "INEC AS A BODY MUST BE NEUTRAL AND NON-PARTISAN"

2) Election Sequence :Section 25 of the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) gives INEC the powers to decide on the election schedule.The present schedule is as follows:

a) Presidential and NASS -16th February
b)Governorship/ HOA-2nd March

However the NASS want it to be changed to :
a)NASS election
b)Governorship/HOA
c)Presidential
If this is done we will have three election weekends which automatically means more money spent. Buhari tried to avoid this as a result he withheld assent,to maintain status quo.

3)Role of Presiding Officers: Section 63 (4) of the Principle Act says "the Presiding officer shall Count and enter in the results scored by each candidate. The new bill says the Presiding officer shall only "enter "the result ,the bill is silent on how counting should be done.

4)Issue of Card readers: Section 52 of the Principle Act abolished the use of electronic voting,this is a major issue the new electoral bill was meant to address,but the national assembly somehow did not add card reader usage to the new bill as a result Buhari withheld assent.

It is important to note that during the 2015 General elections a good number of people in the PDP strongholds voted with incidence forms,GEJ had 1.4m votes in Rivers meanwhile 1.33m were with incidence forms.

The EU report of 2015 clearly stated that results in the South South was inflated by 10% in favour of PDP because most PDP states voted with incidence forms,yet the National assembly did not add card reader usage to the bill.

5)Amount of money to be spent on campaigns :The Principle Act in Section 91 stated as follows-
A)Councillorship-1m Naira should be the maximum spent on Campaigns.
B) Chairmanship and HOA- 10million maximun
C)House of Rep- 20million Maximum
D)Senate -40 million maximum

E) Governorship-200 million Naira maximum.
F)Presidency -1 billion Naira maximum .
It is important to note that Jonathan raised 27billion naira for his campaign in 2015,this even contravened the law in place .

Vote buying and extravagant spending on elections is an issue Nigeria has been trying to battle for years,also with the NTYTR bill which is in place it is advised that the political field should be level,but the National Assembly are not wlling to take it into consideration.

The new bill proposed as follows:
a)Councillorship-5 million should be the maximum spent.
b)Chairmanship/HOA-30million maximum.
c)House of Representative -70million maximum.
d)Senate -100million maximum.
e)Governorship -1billion maximum
f)Presidency -5 billion maximum

In view of this, the new bill will defeat the purpose of the NTYTR bill because youths cannot spend this much on Campaigns.

6)Issues overtaken by events:Some events in the proposed bill have been overtaken by events
a)Notice of withdrawal- The Principle Act in Section 35 gives Candidates 45 days to give notice of withdrawal, while the new law gives Candidates 30 days to give notice.

b)Campaign Time: Section 99 of the Principle Act says campaign must start 90 days before election, however the new act proposes campaign must start 150 days before election day.

C)Time given to INEC to register Associations - The Principle Act says INEC must register Associations 30 days after the application is made,the new act proposes 60 days.

So therefore the passing of this bill at this 11th hour will lead to litigation cases by over -zealous politicians.

7)Duplicity of Words: Section 85 of the Principle Acts calls the coming together of two or more parties as "Merger".The proposed bill makes use of the words "Merger" and "fusion" interchangeably,this will create confusion when the law is interpreted by the Court.

8)The bill will give INEC uncontrollable powers over Political Parties: An Amendment to Section 87 of the Principle Act gives INEC powers to determine who will become delegates, Fees for forms, Qualification of Candidates,Mode of primaries,sequence of Party Primaries etc.

9)Grounds of Petition:Generally the Electoral Act provides four grounds of Petition, the proposed bill aims to reduce it to two grounds. This will reduce the rights of the aggrieved, and derail our political jurisprudence.

Furthermore ,it is important to note the provision of Article 2 of the Ecowas Protocol, which has been ratified into Nigerian laws by virtue of Section 12 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.

It says "No modification shall be made to the electoral Act 6 months to the general elections without the consent of Political actors".

To my understanding, "Political Actors" means other political parties, In the last few weeks we have seen Parties like APM and APDA institute actions in the Federal High Court,seeking a Court order to prevent the President from giving assent to the bill.

Most 'Political Actors" are against the passage of the bill because in all honesty it is already to late,this delay was caused by the National Assembly, the bill has been with NASS for 17 months ,while Buhari was in possession for just 120 days,yet NASS could not make corrections

It is also important to note that a President cannot make correction to a bill,he can only assent or decline,so therefore Buhari cannot correct if he sees any wrong he sends it back to the National Assembly within 30 days.

From the above observations it is clear that the bill has a plethora of errors and if it is passed it will delay the preparation for the elections and cause more litigation cases.
However it is important to note that without the passage, card readers can still be used in 2019.

The INEC Guidelines have clearly said that Card readers can be used,the electoral act says when there is a lacuna in the electoral act ,the guidelines can be used.

INEC have also promised that no incidence form will be used,meaning everything will be electronically based,so do not believe the lies by rumour mongers that card readers will not be used.

Furthermore, the guidelines also in Section 37,40,44 addressed the issue of over-voting which was in the proposed bill. This clearly shows the guideline has taken care of the two major issues in the proposed bill ,and surely as a result the bill can wait until after elections.

In Conclusion, I commend the President and his legal team for making this decision which honestly is the best for Nigeria at this time.

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